Time Warner and CBS End Click-Measuring Contest

Excellent news for television enthusiasts in such regional markets as New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas: Time Warner and CBS have finally concluded the click-measuring contest that had, for the past month, prevented Time Warner subscribers from viewing CBS, Showtime, and CBS.com. The victor: CBS, naturally. Network president Les Moonves said in a statement that CBS will now be “receiving fair compensation” for the privilege of broadcasting such artistic achievements asNCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, Elementary, Hawaii Five-0, and You Ruined My Life Mom. (Vote now in CBS.com’s “Fanticipate Fall” poll about which specific spinoff or reboot you, the fan, are most fanticipating!) The guileful, unloved loser is none other than the guileful, unloved Time Warner, the top executive of which said of the still-secret deal: “We certainly didn’t get everything we wanted.”

What, exactly, was wanted and lost? It is as unclear as a picture emitted from a Time Warner cable box during a light drizzle. The New York Timesreports: “The two sides did not release any specific information on the terms of the agreement. They had battled for exactly a month over an increase in fees CBS was seeking for the right to retransmit CBS stations in the three major cities and some other locations on Time Warner Cable systems.” The lopsided détente “underscored the leverage that the owners of important television content, especially sports like N.F.L. football, retain over distributors like cable systems.”

It was an easy enough public relations win for the network, which, in conjunction with talented writers and actors, produces hilarious comedies, thrilling dramas, and whatever Hawaii Five-0 is, to the delight of millions of fans. Time Warner, on the other hand, is something of an amorphous middle man that is, during the best of times, completely ignored, and during the worst of times, wrathfully cursed for its dysfunction and inconvenience. The only way Time Warner could have won the media battle would have been if CBS were revealed to be a shell company devised of executives from the MTA and ConEd.